Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

A Western Yogi’s Evolving Precis

My yoga starts when I acknowledge the Western inheritance of the yoga tradition or some blended combination of traditions. Western yoga shares widely in the thread known as hatha, a tradition of opposing forces coming into balance and working together for the yogi’s mental, spiritual, and physical development.

A scholarly treatment of ancient texts or a detailed study of yoga’s historical variations – each with schools, histories, practices, religiosities, and gurus requires intense, academic study in linguistics, theology, sociology, history, medicine, and mythology. This would be the work of a lifetime.

Knowing this opens me to become an incomplete scribe articulating a perspective behind a yoga encounter in matter and consciousness. Yoga is a force which puts an encounter front and center for every yogi. Faced with this, each one responds in their own way. And while I think it’s good to know about tradition – so that we do not claim something as ours that is not ours – like most Western yogis, my practice and study draws from the deep well of yoga’s healing waters.

Yoga and its variations were formed in a complex, multifaceted cultural context that very few Westerners understand. This culture created yoga from its particular situation and in its evolving timeline.

The truth is that yoga has always been and is always changing and the proof is that yoga today in India looks different and is vastly more inclusive than it was just one hundred years ago. And just as yoga has morphed and changed through the Centuries in India, it will also change and evolve in the West.… read more...

LUNAR SOUND JOURNEY – event Sunday 4:30

Everyone lives with failures and mistakes. It’s part of being human. But we also carry within us our wildest unarticulated imaginings and hopes.

Perhaps sometime during 2021, we’ve experienced great happiness and joy. Maybe we’ve celebrated something in our lives or the lives of those in our circles. But life is a balance, and we also may have endured something we could describe as sorrow, regret, or a private deep grief.

Whatever it was, it was our experience. That’s why it’s good to take stock at the end of one era (2021) and the commencement of another (2022).

On Sunday, during this first Lunar Sound Journey event of 2022 led by Crystal, you will not only experience the vibrations of healing, and words of wisdom from sages through the ages, but you are also given a time to use pen and paper for recalling and writing something that you need to write.

It will be your private exercise and yours alone. You may journal about 2021 or this New Year. Maybe you don’t want to do that part at all and that is also okay. It is your time and the sound healing and vibrational goodness will be there for you to enjoy.

If this is something that you might want to do in an intentional way, I hope you can attend Lunar Sound Journey on Sunday, January 2, from 4:30-6:00. Reserve your spot through Eventbrite. Use the PROMO Code GREG for 20% discount. CLICK POSTER BELOW TO RESERVE YOUR PLACE ON SUNDAY. Details follow link below

www.eventbrite.com/e/lunar-sound-journey-2022-tickets-233960019717… read more...

Peace: Just a Pause Away

peace: just a pause a – YOGI TIMES

"Peace, Just a Pause Away," originally published July, 2015 by YOGI TIMES; republished August, 2021 by YOGI TIMES. #yogainspirationals number 24

be here, now

When my yoga class begins, one of my teachers will often remind me to “let go” of what happened during the day. This first step is part of an overall readiness for yogi’s, helping us to clear our minds and become present and focused before class. I thought also of how it’s important to let go of what didn’t happen during the day.

Recently, I was holding on to expectations and waiting to hear news about writing, news about how my daughter was doing after her dog was run over by a car, waiting to hear about plans with friends, hoping for news about my work. Responding to anxious feelings, I checked my email and social media accounts too many times. Nothing happened.

By early evening, I went to class wishing that I’d had a better day. That’s when I realized that I needed to let go of those things that didn’t happen – what I might call my wishes.

I was in the right place, for I’ve learned that yoga teaches me how come to terms with what happens and also what doesn’t happen. It does so by grounding me on the mat with intentionality and presence. I’ve also come to believe that the harder those moments are on my mat, the more present I am by necessity.

Maybe that’s why I love yoga so much, it takes me away from the un-happening and stretches out my emotional maturity so that at least for a while, I’m taken away from my selfish self and am at peace.… read more...

WE STILL STAND

 

“We still stand.” An Agnostis/Ormson collaboration dedicated to ongoing and growing movement for change driven, in part, by the activism of #MMIWRiders and #mmiwg #rideformmiw #NoMoreStolenSisters keyboard, composition, photos and video randy anagnostis. lyric, background sounds, and vocal gregory ormson Original song, “Indigenous Souls.”… read more...

Talking Story and Riding the Medicine Wheel #rideformmiw

 

Truer than ever before, much of the world was asleep in their screens during 2020. Television, cell phones, and computers offered connections during the worst of the world-wide pandemic, but connections sans touch.

Such connections seem void of what I’d call true encounter. An incarnated connection is more real for it’s in the flesh and is sustained over time by meeting, greeting, touching or holding intimate space for one another.

Emerging from the last year of sleep and screens, 2021 is sparking a new consciousness. We are realizing something critical to the survival of Earth and the human species. We need to talk with one another.

I’m discovering that as we sit down together and engage we learn how to listen again. Listening teaches how build and sustain by giving, taking, and willingly offering disclosure and feedback. This happens when we “talk story,” a phrase and practice I learned from the Hawaiians.  Talking story is no small thing. It’s the way movements start, and the way the medicine wheel ride started.

Talking story, the indigenous women spoke about the missing and murdered sisters, mothers, aunts, cousins, daughters, and grandmothers they knew – from all nations – they realized the tragedy was three-fold. First, that it happens at all. Second that it happens at an alarming rate among indigenous peoples than anywhere else; and third, that nobody was talking about it.

These crimes continue to break and destroy the bonds of family and community everywhere but especially on indigenous lands.

The Medicine Wheel Ride was formed for awareness, disclosure, feedback, justice, and change.… read more...

You have a question about yoga and spirituality?

I’m pleased to have an invitation from OM Yoga and Lifestyle (magazine) Colchester, UK, to be a regular contributor, specifically, the OM Spirit section dealing with the spirituality inherent in yoga.

As a lifelong researcher of spiritual perspectives from around the world, I practice an ongoing evaluation of the esoteric. I’ve learned to be critical of every spiritual perspective yet remain open to the testaments of everyone’s perspective.

Theologians evaluate spiritual grounding by looking at the context of any spirituality. They call this discipline hermeneutics, which is a questioning and critical posture regarding: religious assumptions about humanity, spirituality’s inspirations, its leadership, and its goals.

But the most important aspect of critical thinking is that it can deliver us from the trap of believing that my culture – or my perspective – is the center of the world. This may open us to see both the wisdom and folly of our religious or spiritual background.

A hermeneutic evaluation means one is always suspicious of the texts and traditions from any school of thought. It leads one to dig in and find out what the text or tradition is really saying to the individual and the community, and then to ask if it squares with the entirety of what one knows deep down in their bones.

Hermeneutics questions every spiritual perspective and what it says about culture, religious leadership, and society. You have a question about yoga and spirituality? Send it to me, I’m looking for ideas to write about for OM Yoga and Lifestyle.

 … read more...

thanks to OM YOGA AND LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE.

(Colchester, Essex Co., UK) for including “Conducting the Awesome,” in your October HOT YOGA special.

This magazine is ‘with it.’  Last month, they celebrated their 100th issue, and have published extensively on inclusivity, body positivity, yin yoga, retreats, men in yoga, Western Yoga, and breath training as the new yoga.

Breath Training is what I do, having just completed two yoga workshops in Wisconsin and Michigan on “Yoga Breath, Breath of Life.” Breath training is a new – but very old –  emphasis growing from the needs of Westerners. By engaging the breath, we learn to calm ourselves in a conflicted world. My workshop is integrative: meaning it includes philosophy, linguistics, biology, mobilization of prana, execution of the bandas, the embodiment of asana, a practice of mindful release, and attentive work on drishti.

At my teaching site, Superstition Harley Davidson in Apache Junction, AZ., when motorcycling yogis focus on breathing, when they hear sitar gently pinging above the roaring big twin engines, and when they receive my final salutation, breathe deep and exhale a final OM, it begins to look and sound like something not heard or seen before; indeed, Western yoga is changing (practice at a HD dealership proves it) and slowly taking on a unique form and function. For me, it starts with the building block of it all – BREATH.This fall, I’ll bring even more breath training to my teaching at YOGA AND LEATHER (Superstition Harley Davidson) in October as we start year 3 of Yoga for Bikers.

If anyone wants to learn more about this focus on breath, I’m ready to conduct a two hour workshop for you – with original music on sitar and guitar –  “Yoga Breath, Breath of Life.”… read more...

ANCHORS: For Kristen and Greg on their 25th anniversary

One good thing about Facebook is that every now and then someone reaches from the past and makes contact with us in the present. This is the case from someone that contacted me yesterday and I’m glad he did.

Today (Aug. 13) is Kristen and Greg’s 25th wedding anniversary. Back then, I was the officiant for their wedding when I was working as a clergy for the Lutheran church and my assignment was to Northern Michigan University. Marquette was my home for 12 years, and two of my children were born there. Except for the cold – which I can’t stand – it was the best place I ever lived.

Along with his Facebook note, Greg sent one photo from his and Kristen’s wedding ceremony. I had never seen it, and it brought back many good memories of my time as a YOOPER in Upper Michigan.

Greg reminded me that I played my ceremonial wood duck drum as part of their wedding. Playing a drum wasn’t that far out of bounds -since I started drumming with a set at 14 – but I made the drum I used in their wedding and have used it in many ceremonies. The oak body for the drum came from a large tree that had been struck by lightning. The deer skin on top was from the last deer my dad had shot in Indian-head Country of Northwest Wisconsin.

Text below is from “Anchors,” a piece about drumming.

ANCHORS

From early on, I heard text and sub-text in drums and memorized tom-strike patterns, rim hits on snare, and foot work for the high hat.… read more...

YOGA MAGAZINE FEATURE STORY: Yoga and Leather: A New Road for Bikers (#yogainspirationals 79).

 

YOGA & LEATHER: A New Road for Bikers

Every yogi is the same. But every yogi has been injured in their own way. Debbie McGregor, passionate yogi and motorcyclist, was first injured at age 11. It happened in a rodeo mishap when she was locked in a cramped chute with a panicked horse. A broken back sustained in a motorcycle accident in her early 30’s became major injury number two, and she suffered a broken neck in a car accident during her early 50’s.

“When I read about YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers,” she said, “I couldn’t believe it; something combining my two passions, I had to come.”

After her car accident, Debbie was told she’d be paralyzed from the neck down, but she resolved to walk and was determined to ride her Harley Davidson motorcycle again. She invested in physical therapy and added yoga as a daily routine. Three years after the accident, Debbie is doing yoga and motorcycling around the country. “It’s unexplainable how much yoga does in the path of healing. The more I do, the more I want and the more I heal,” she said.

Paul, a 79 year old retired Chicago police officer, is another dedicated rider of Harley Davidson motorcycles but new to yoga. Like Debbie, he found his way to YOGA AND LEATHER, and considers it healing balm and an island of peace.

Recently, Paul’s 900 pound motorcycle tipped over and landed on his foot. He hobbled into class wearing big boots and blue jeans, but did what he could. “I need it, it’s good.… read more...

LET IT BE: When Your Yoga Becomes You

Thank you BAD YOGI MAGAZINE for publishing #YogaInspirationals 76.

One reference for this article is Science of Breath: A Complete Manual of the Oriental Breathing Philosophy of Physical, Mental, Psychic and Spiritual Development (1905). Yoga Publications Society. The book is out of print now, but I borrowed a copy last summer from Laurel Gyland Kieffer. It has provided new insight on breath work in yoga. Some of this will be included in the “Yoga Temple Breath Workshops” I’ll be conducting this summer in Wisconsin and Michigan.

LET IT BE: When Your Yoga Becomes You

 … read more...

YOGA AND LEATHER – new moves for riders and yogis

Shipra Saraogi (pictured) at the Usery Mountain Regional Park, Mesa, Arizona.

#MotorcyclingyogiG teaches yoga for riders (YOGA AND LEATHER) at Superstition Harley-Davidson in Apache Junction, Arizona. His classes demonstrate to riders how they might use their bike for a prop to stretch when taking a break from the road with the goal of  keeping riders in the saddle.

Shipra Saraogi, yoga teacher and performance artist from New York City, stopped by Superstition Harley-Davidson and the Arizona desert for some warm up-on Greg’s 2016 HD Road King. This not recommend or taught in Yoga and Leather.

March 31, 2019 is the date for our next “Stretch Ride,” in Arizona led by #motorcyclingyogiG, Gregory Ormson. Meet at Superstition Harley Davidson 10:30 am. Ride to the desert, stretch, breathe, pose.

 

… read more...

Conducting the Awesome: What I’ve Learned from 7 Years of Hot Yoga

“Conducting the Awesome: What I’ve Learned from 7 Years of Hot Yoga” is live on elephant journal.

https://www.elephantjournal.com/2019/02/conducting-the-awesome-what-ive-learned-from-7-years-of-hot-yoga/

This is my 11th article for elephant journal since September, 2014, and the latest installment (73) of what I call YogaInspirationals, a collection of my yoga writing published by elephant and 12 other national and international magazines, Websites, and public social media sites.

I write lyric nonfiction and hybrid, and right now I’m pitching my latest work – a hybrid nonfiction piece – on drumming, and things that happen when I go to a rustic cabin in northern Wisconsin I share with my brothers. I call that place Oz no matter what roads I take to get there. It’s Oz to me even without a wizard, a Toto, or a Dorothy.

Thank you for comments, support, resharing, etc., Let’s keep on conducting the awesome in yoga, in writing, and in life.
#motorcyclingyogiG. 

#yogainspirationalsnumber73

 

 

 

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THE WATERS OF BABYLON: A PARABLE

  Once upon a time a mystical movement became water and moved from east to west. The gurus of this movement dreamed it would take root, grow, and change people in the new land. A bold vision drove their mission; they were certain and sure. The gurus taught students but were confused by them. They were tall, loud, and rich, but they listened to their gurus and absorbed the way of wisdom and ancient discipline.

The gurus were overwhelmed by bright neon lights and an infant culture. They misplaced prayer beads and lost their way. Their movement danced and shape-shifted. It wasn’t what the gurus expected but better than they could have hoped for. In a short time, the practice prospered.

Many in the new land feared it, but someone discovered it was good for prisoners, alcoholics, the sick, those suffering pain, and even angry youth. The rich and healthy began to think that perhaps the gurus offered good medicine.

Western teachers, overlooking spirituality of the way, taught their version. The culture moved fast, like a river’s rapids. Westerners,  motivated by money, fed off the illusion of freedom. The west land had great diversity and creativity; and when coupled with entrepreneurial spirit, energy drinks, and ambition, yoga flowed across the land. This was, after all, the guru’s original vision.

The movement became a symbol of youth, change, and the culturally hip. Athletes and celebrities endorsed the practice and photographs of yogis posed in peacock asana were featured in glossy magazines, billboards, and Instagram glossies.

But the Eastern gurus’ mystical remnant became a vanishing dream, a memory from a place and time long past.… read more...

THE POWER OF OM: rediscovering the deep, abiding peace of coming home in a frantic world.

Thank you OM Yoga and Lifestyle magazine (UK) for publishing my 72nd YogaInspirational, “Traveling OM,” December, 2018

Traveling OM

By Dr. Gregory Ormson

THE POWER OF OM: rediscovering the deep, abiding peace of coming home in a frantic world.

“We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year old carbon…”  Lyrics from the song Woodstock suggest that we are made of cosmic energy and matter. We have a hard time believing it because there are very few places that affirm such a grandiose and luminous being. But when we yoga, we participate in a pattern that moves the stars, and positions us to touch an inner OM at the core of our being.

In a soft chant of OM, rooted and expressed from the core, our cares are set free. Then we note our deepest truth: we are beings at one with a divinely animated critical mass of stardust and carbon waiting to meet and welcome us home.

But cultural voices bombard us with an unending cacophony of negativity and dismissal. This poisonous milieu is designed to make us feel small and inadequate, serving us from a menu of strife and anxiety. News and current events can leave us feeling like we’re a nonsignificant cog in a great drama that’s happening elsewhere.

The world is effective at labeling and objectifying. It does so with convenient categories submitted for fast indexing and stereotyping: age, race, sex, job, income, and education level. But a mountain is more than a geode, a river more than an eddy, men and women more than insignificant pieces of something more important.… read more...

A BLOG A DAY TILL EPIPHANY

Once a day until December 6, Epiphany, I’m blogging a six point synopsis of my yoga writing from the last seven years. These blog posts are all arranged by: 1. The primary sentence. 2. The theologic and yogic summative word. 2. An explanatory paragraph.

Your respectful comments are welcome.

DAY SIX, December 6, 2018

     6. In savasana, space and time welcome the yogi for an anointing to the goodness of true self and true nature

THEOLOGICAL WORD: ANNOINTING

YOGA WORD, HEALING

Yoga’s internal work (the heat of tapas) teaches the yogi compassion for self; in savasana’s moments of rest, the yogi is anointed (bathed) in yoga’s healing tradition. This is not a cosmetic make over, but a weaving together of a timeless process which synthesizes everything up to that moment in a deep affirmation of life itself. Savasana is the yogi’s reception of yoga’s physical, non-physical, and metaphysical medicine.

DAY FIVE, December 5, 2018

     5. The subject and object of yoga’s missiology is self

THEOLOGICAL WORD: MISSIOLOGY

YOGA WORD: PRACTICE

In the container, at the confluence of yogi, guru, and healing practice, a drop of sweat takes one to self and self to God. The yogi – a vessel devoid of armor and ego – incarnates a healing curriculum in a generative engagement translated to a focused biology of belief and concomitant mind/body/spirit reshaping.

DAY FOUR, December 4, 2018

4. A path to community opens with the relinquishment of armor.

THEOLOGICAL WORD: ECCLESIA

YOGA WORD: COMMUNITY

Inside the yoga room, an awakened center is tutored in self-love and love for others.… read more...

MANTRA FOR ME AND YOU

Read my 64th Yogainspirationals published by Sivana East, by following the link under article snippet below.

The power of a word has always been recognized by schools of spirituality and in leadership studies. In the Christian Gospel of John, one reads “In the beginning was the Word.” The Rik Veda strikes the same tone, “In the beginning was Brahman, with who was the Word.” There are other examples, but the centrality and power of Word is the common insight.

An active yoga practice does not demand that practitioners choose a mantra, yer it can center one’s practice and improve an understanding of our identity in the world as both spiritual and physical beings.

 

Mantra For Me And You

 

Gregory Ormson saw yoga on his first trip to India in the ’70’s. Currently, he writes and teaches at MOTTO YOGA in Queen Creek, Arizona, and leads his signature program, “Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers,” at Superstition Harley Davidson in Apache Junction, Arizona. His doctoral degree (D. Min), from the Chicago Theological Seminary, focused on the power of touch for ritual healing in liminal environments. He’s worked as a public speaker, college teacher, retreat leader, corporate trainer, baseball and soccer coach.

Ormson graduated from The University of Wisconsin, La Crosse (BS), Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan (MA), Trinity Lutheran Seminary (M. Div), and The Chicago Theological Seminary (D. Min). Along with Sivana East, Ormson’s writing on yoga is published in 11 national and international journals, magazines, blogs and Web sites. He writes on yoga, motorcycling, music, and The Midwest.

https://gregoryormson.com… read more...

Yoga Breath, Breath of Life

 

In the workshops I’ve done at MOTTO YOGA, I’ve included others to help lead the experience. In January, Dan Meyer showed up and dropped a REAL SWORD down his throat and talked about how that is worship for him. In the other workshops, I’ve had Cindy Cain and Lee Swenson accompany me with fiddle, guitar, and voice/rain stick.

On (Sunday) for the “YOGA BREATH, BREATH OF LIFE,” workshop, I will be sharing leadership with Katori Noor, a certified yoga teacher and has an extra 300 hours trained in yoga and ayurveda, and another 40-hour training in yoga sound healing. She’s also bringing her incredible sounding gongs and singing crystal bowls for the two hour workshop on Sunday at 1:00 pm.
I’m planning a fun activity and sharing a tip from one of our students that grew up practicing yoga in India. I think this will be instructive for all and could even be transformative for your yoga practice.
So carry on with your lives and good work; breathe deep, and transmute the poison that seems to be so very present. Take care of yourselves.
And maybe I’ll see you at the workshop this Sunday at Motto Yoga.
To pre-register, see www.mottoyoga.com and click on the link to workshops.
… read more...

YOGA BREATH, BREATH OF LIFE

Workshop at MOTTO YOGA, Sunday July 29, 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm.

7529 S. POWER RD. Suite 101, QUEEN CREEK, ARIZONA  480-819-YOGA

Pre register for this two-hour workshop at www.mottoyoga.com

Participants in this workshop will engage the dynamic force of their own breath – yoga’s therapeutic – through breathing exercises and healing sound, asana linked to focused pranayama, presentation and dialogue, and experimental movmement with rhythmic breathing.  During the workshop, yogis will be positioned to encounter self in the ground of their being (BREATH) in their own way.

This 4th Yoga Temple workshop continues the theme of yoga as an embodiment of spirit.

The workshop will unfold as:

PART I    20-30 minutes engagement with the theme including physiology and philosophy through dialogue and presentation.

PART II    50-60 minutes practice with pranayama sets – some will be new to students but completely accessible.

** INCLUDING A TIP FROM ONE OF OUR YOGI’S WHO GREW UP IN INDIA.

SOMETHING THAT EVERYONE IN INDIA DOES IN YOGA BUT WE DO NOT FOLLOW HERE IN THE US. COME TO THE WORKSHOP TO LEARN OF THIS IMPORTANT PRANAYAMA INSIGHT. .

PART III    20-30 minutes of moderate asana with attentive breath focus

These activities will put yogis in touch with pranayama in new and even life-changing ways by:

  1.  a therapeutic experience by engagement with presentation and breathing experiences
  2.  silence and breath hold
  3.  sound (soft volumes) gong, bowl, drum beat, music (recorded and live)
  4.  movement linked to breath

SEE YOU at MOTTO yoga on Sunday, July 29, 1:00 pm for Yoga Temple Workshop #4.

Your hosts for Yoga Breath, Breath of Life

Gregory Ormson came to yoga from a background in athletics, teaching, and spiritual studies.… read more...

Slow Down and Breathe

 

Slow Down and Breathe

Yogis have been attempting to articulate the importance of pranayama for centuries, and the effort is still relevant because when a person starts yoga it doesn’t take long for them to realize its a breath centric practice which changes everything.

The practice of pranayama is an important observance by itself, but is often done in haste, as if a couple minutes at the beginning of class is sufficient warm-up for the real work of asana.

Patanjali wrote, by the right control of breath, we overcome ignorance. Breath work is a hallmark of the yogi’s intelligence, and control of breath is intimately linked to the yogi’s heightened awareness of biological and cosmic forces.

Approaches to Pranayama

It’s important to concentrate on breath or prana as a distinct activity with its own benefits and techniques as well as a guiding anchor for asana. Some yoga practices start with pranayama before asana while others pay attention to activating and sustaining ujaii breath throughout asana and pause occasionally to work on pranayama.

Another option is to end practice with a breathing set. But to fully activate the vital life force, central to building the foundation for yoga and life, attention to breath throughout must be paid.

Pranayama isn’t something to rush through in order to get to asana. One 80 year old man I know got the right idea after his first-ever yoga class at YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers. His replacement knees made it difficult for him to bend, and his large body ached, but he did the pranayama exercises –  practicing inhale and exhale – while observing others do asana.… read more...

“We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year-old carbon.”

Relinquishment is to spirituality as rain is to flowers.

Vishnu’s Temple, Grand Canyon

In relinquishing cultural norms, one becomes present to being, grounded in body, as the seat of religiosity. In every moment, yoga reassembles the truth-temple of flesh and bone; its molecular pilotry moves the yogi to become a seeker of breath and conduit of royal consciousness. “We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon.”… read more...

5 Coaching Tips for Yoga Newbies (and one requirement)

Yoga Inspirationals number 52, first published in DOYOUYOGA.COM, July 5, 2016.

 

5 Tips (and One Requirement) for Coaching Yoga Newbies

Coaching may seem a little controlling and something unnecessary when we’re talking about the behavior of independent adults, but in yoga space, coaching is not about independence; rather, it’s about cooperation.

Because cooperation is not a universal trait, many yoga studios resort to posting their rules and regulations in an obvious, public place. It’s not that people are trying to be nasty, but some simply are less aware of their behavior.

These rules are posted to help everyone sharing space cooperate with one another when there are a variety of simultaneous needs and norms. Rules and regulations help form a standard behavior that may not appeal to everyone, but aim to limit chaos and unbalanced inconvenience.

Listening to the way coaches talk, I’ve learned about the concept of “behavioral targets and performance targets.” I’m not interested in performance targets in relationship to yoga (because that seems a metric designed for competitive sports), but my curiosity about behavioral targets has led me to think about how I would coach newcomers to yoga.

Cooperation requires a different set of group skills than individualism, and the guidelines for studios will only work with cooperation.

Yoga and “Behavioral Targets”

In yoga, you might hear that nobody is there to judge you…and I think that’s true. But, people do evaluate you.

Your teachers evaluate you because they want to know where you are in your practice and figure out how best to help you. They evaluate me too, it’s just the way humans are.

… read more...

Deena Metzger on writing

” . . . a story is a grid, an archetypal narrative, a divine scaffolding that organizes experience into a complexity of meanings and forms. The life that may otherwise appear to be unbearably random or intolerably chaotic becomes whole when made known through the revelation of the intrinsic narrative.”

Imagine the stories . . .… read more...

Preview of Yoga Temple 3 at MOTTO YOGA: The Pure Consciousness of Healing (Sunday March 4, Noon to 1:30)

Today, spiritual notions of integrated unitary consciousness are popular but suspect. Some people require facts, and without verifiable facts proving esoteric dimensions, will dismiss such notions and think of consciousness and chakra activation as nothing but wild speculation.

But quantum studies in the subatomic realm more than suggest that everything is composed of vibrational energy even if we cannot prove it. Yogic philosophy treated this idea by suggesting that anything in matter has previously existed in the unmanifest cosmic womb. Indian philosophy even had a name for this place of pure potentiality, calling it hiranyagarbha, or the Golden Womb, the origin of all creation. Technically, ‘hiranya’ means ‘golden’ and ‘garbha’ means womb, and its symbol is a golden egg.

The science of physics has opened up big ideas like the notion of energy as vibration, or a not-yet manifest form of matter. It has helped Westerners accept that matter is not as concrete as we thought. Quantum thought maintains that the unmanifest is as real as each of us here and now, but is unrecognizable until energy and matter manifest or bring it into material form.

This is how healing consciousness moves too, for consciousness of a thing also changes the mode of being in that thing which is beheld. The Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle, from the field of physics, affirms this insight and points out that it’s not possible to observe matter without influencing its actions. And while it’s true that the principle was developed while observing the velocity and speed of quantum particles, it applies to all matter.

The paralytic man’s friends (story from the Gospel of Mark), were determined to place him in close proximity to the pure consciousness of healing in Jesus.… read more...

The Savasana Cloud

The Christian church used to be central to my life, vocation, and identity but it’s not anymore.

Still, I bring my past theological training to my yoga practice and on occasion I remember a word or idea from my past to interpret how I express and experience yoga.

I think of a scriptural passage where the writer is reminding his community that they are not alone. He tells them that they are, in fact, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.

Traditionally, the cloud meant a mass of condensed water vapor, usually white, or tinged in various shades of grey and black. But in our day, a cloud has come to mean a digital storage space. Ok, that’s cool.

But I also see a cloud as a continually morphing group of people that see me on my mat—sweating and putting forth effort—and it’s exactly how I see them. When practicing yoga, I am one member of this cloud, a group of people that witness to each other’s’ effort, practice, time, and presence.

I practice in studios with many members. I try to learn names so that I can address them personally. In one studio, I know over fifty people by name. These names remind me that I am not alone—even when my yoga feels like a solitary pursuit. Still, I work to remember each name in our studio because a name concretizes the amorphous nature of a cloud and it tells people they are not just a number but a person with a name.

Written out, these names would fill only one page, but if they were added to all the yogis and yoginis that have gone before, the pages would fill stacks in the tallest libraries.… read more...

Yoga Temple Workshops

On Sunday, Feb. 11, we’ll hold the second of three YOGA TEMPLE workshops at MOTTO YOGA in Queen Creek (Power and German Rd).

I hope to see you… read more...

YOGA and LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers January 17, 2018 at Superstition Harley Davidson in Apache Junction, AZ.

The next class for YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers, is Wednesday, Jan. 17, 4:30 at Superstition Harley Davidson. See how these bikers are keeping themselves ready to Ride On!

 

 

 

A BIG THANK YOU to M.J. Britt for taking these photos at Superstition HD.

 

 

When motorcycling and yoga come together, good things happen. Practice yoga at Superstition Harley Davidson and feel the roar of motorcycles below the Eagles Nest. It’s different, but bikers and yogis have never been afraid of different.

Yogis come in all shapes and sizes and so do bikers. Yoga and motorcycling require many of the same skills:

ability to be calm in the midst of stress

sequential learning to master corners or poses

movement with awareness and presence of mind

flexibility and balance

This is just a start. Find out how yoga can keep you riding now and into the future.

I’ll meet you in the Eagles Nest !

YOGA BENEFITS FOR BIKERS

Increased strength and muscle tone through weight bearing and power postures / for large bikes and long tours, building strength for long days on the road.

Improved balance by practicing one-leg standing postures / better control in tight U turns and backing.

Increased mental focus and coordination, clarity of thought developed by balance and silence in yoga practice / life and death on the bike is directly related to mental focus and clarity.

Improved sleep after a hard yoga practice / no dozing while driving, deeper sleep leads to increased energy on the road.

Improved posture / improved back and neck comfort on rides.… read more...

YOGA TEMPLE WORKSHOPS: Embodying the Healing Grace of Yoga

I hope many of you can steer your way to attend one or all three YOGA TEMPLE workshops at MOTTO YOGA.

 

TITLE: YOGA TEMPLE: Embodying the Healing Grace of Yoga

WHAT: An integrative workshop series exploring Christian and Eastern thought / tradition. Workshops will embrace: asana, pranayama, philosophy, and experimental movement.

WHY: To address the inherent spiritual dimensions of yoga.

WHO: Anyone with questions about spirituality, faith, belief, and yoga.

WHERE: MOTTO YOGA, 7529 Power Rd. Queen Creek, AZ

 

Register at MottoYoga.com

January 14, Sunday NOON

Februray 11, Sunday NOON

March 4, Sunday NOON… read more...

Snippets from YOGATECTURE

  If you believe yoga is a physical discipline, I’ll play mystic from the East and counter, yoga is not matter, its mind. If you were to say, “Yoga is a confusing philosophy,” I’ll rebut, its focus is the empirical (diet and bodily health). If one maintains yoga is found in the experience of asana, I’ll point to the crown chakra and our intimate participation with the cosmic Self. If someone says, “Yoga is spirituality,” I’ll ask, what do you mean? If a yogi tells me, “Yoga is a path to heightened consciousness,” I’ll say, okay, but to what end?… read more...

Snippets from YOGATECTURE

With the inhale, exhale, and hold, I’m moved to completeness. I learn that my place, my contentment, is anchored in the link that is welded into me by yoga. These simple moves are a stunning antidote for worry. They have become my spiritual DNA, lodging in my soul and energizing my spine.

I fasten to this deep core with breath and meditation pioneered by music and time. I embody asana and rejoice in a glimpse of the periphery turned central, a new identity refined by fusion of the particular and the universal. Moment by single moment, I inhabit a contentment and know we are all a beautiful crush of salt and pepper.… read more...

Snippets from YOGATECTURE

Breathing into the body leads to calmness of mind and a moment of stillness. When coupled with asana, yoga looks like movement into wider shape shifting in space. But these moves are designed to enable perspective shifting while intentional breath and movement relax the mind and open a pathway for a return to source. This quiet moment of healing and rest will not look the same on every yogi.… read more...

Snippets from YOGATECTURE

 Asana becomes joyful and effortless when it is an expression of gratitude. In movement, our attitude is ingrained into muscle memory and our lives change. This is the premise of japa yoga; cellular shape aligns with thought and intention. Our bodies absorb everything our minds present. When stress is perceived in the mind it is felt in the body. Often it stays there to the detriment of our health and well-being.… read more...

YOGATECTURE

 

Thank you to Asana International Yoga Journal for publishing this 56th Yoga Inspirational.… read more...

Moves of the heart are the hotline to all stories

                            I want to unfold.

Let no place in me hold itself closed,

for where I am closed

I am false.

–Rainer Maria Rilke

 

Fluid yoga, going to six years, continues remaking and each remaking is connected to another. Born in water, I am dragonfly, now rabbit. I shift to camel, fish, or embody an ever-watchful sphinx. Then I evolve once again, going back and yet forward at the same time to my child in his innocent, trusting repose. My evolving is your evolving: inward, backward, downward.

Your asana is my asana, my bending and shaping is your bending and shaping, your practice of eustress and release morphs into luminous savasana. Your savasana is my savasana, and mine is yours: a cloud, salty and damp.

 

YOUR LONGINGS ARE MY LONGINGS

 

This cloud, a safe home for witnesses and their truths, where every joy and sorrow bursts forth in prophetic rain. And as colors bend to make a rainbow, these witnesses bend into their longings. Your longings are my longings.

We breathe into sweet release, and the turning becomes a roadmap for traveling outward. The trail makes little sense; it leads down to the place where gravity rests. Tracking energy for centuries, the Tao notes that water flows to low places. My gravity is your gravity.

My guru said the way out is the way in. Her wisdom comes from a bloodline far to the east, from a practice that bent and molded her matter-mind, from evidence etched into the soles of her feet. Tucked in like a child, she steps over the soles of my feet, and your East meets my West.… read more...

THE LATEST SCENE IN THE PLAY FAILS TO CATCH THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING

MUSIC from an Internet radio station plays in the background. Tablas and harmonium weave a soft melody. Sometimes a flute or sitar joins the song, and it pours over me like waves from the Pacific. It’s compelling to my ear. I try to concentrate on my pose, but sometimes I wander and follow the music.

I follow the sound, slow my heartbeat and ground my awareness. I’m still in class, but I imagine diving below and swimming deep. I listen closely and believe I hear the octopus changing colors. I open my eyes and breathe sound of the room.

In the tapas of my practice and its link to my muscle and sinew, a moment turns into a hour and my tribute to those who have gone before. An epic prayer from ancestors is on my lips.

Music stills me and I stay in the room until I hear my teacher give her blessing.. Her soft voice heaps a lavish blessing upon the gathered yogis which we accept and hold,  “May your practice bring strength to your bodies, clarity to your minds, kindness and compassion to your hearts.”

I take this and know that I have been brought around and past my edges. I will go into the world with slightly less border and boundary, inhabiting a conscience of wider circles and deeper draws of inclusion

I realize this reshaping is the nexus of my identity, the ring of fire connecting my courage and passion. I have been showered in wholeness and connected by the strength, clarity, kindness, and compassion of the words that take me to the heart center.… read more...

Starting Yoga Teacher Training

I’m starting a yoga teacher training program this Saturday in Pine, Arizona. It’s been five years since I first walked into a yoga room in Hawaii, and during that time, I’ve learned from many teachers practicing at 12 studios in four states.

I’ve also been fortunate to attend three yoga workshops outside of regular classes, and while these were only a few hours or a half-day, I caught a glimpse of what a lifelong practice can look like. I was moved by what I learned and experienced with Kim Tang, Esak Garcia, and Lucas Miles. I’d like to borrow something from them and from all the teachers and yogis I’ve met. I hope to use it in my teaching and practice.

All these teachers are good at communicating and leading classes through basic asana. All of them speak of connection to breath and self and they all say breathe and stay present, everyone invites relaxation, and gives encouragement to do the work, and in this intentional engagement everyone discovers what they need to know.

Some use oils and music, some heated room, some chimes, bells and singing bowls, but not everyone. In some cases, they go beyond, as in the practice of Bhakti (devotional) and Naad Yoga -sound and healing – which opens self to greater Self (Cassandra Bright, Gilbert Yoga, Gilbert, AZ); speaking of how yoga restores hope and saves lives after horrible accidents, healing physical body which leads to spiritual restoration (Sheila Nelson, Motto Yoga, Queen Creek, AZ); energy healing and the way of chakras, sound, and the singing bowl (Suzette Johnston, Motto Yoga, Queen Creek, AZ); yoga after running and the pursuit of kundalini and continual learning  to make intellectual connections (Leslie Pelke, Motto Yoga, Queen Creek, AZ); how to take joy and happiness from a disciplined practice (Kirsten Holmson and her team at Community Soul, Wausau, Wis); yoga as gift for all ages and peoples – especially kids – (Robyn Bretyl, Lightbody Yoga, Wausau, Wis); the willingness to take risks and reach beyond the normal (Lori Jokinen, Jennifer Taylor, and her team from Tulivesi Yoga in Marquette, Mi); the courageous heart – Croix Croga – of yoga (Katie Ziemann, Croix Croga, Wausau, Wis);  yoga as the moving, transforming connection between heart and soul (Andrea Hutchens Tika Anandisari, Aaron, Melissa Katherine Lotus Heart, Brooke Meyers, Sarah Bloom, Jenna Rae, Dana Strang and Sai Fon Woozley from Yoga Hale in Hawaii); the affirmations and benefits of yoga, asana, and pranayama leading to a heightened breathcentric awarenss (a special shout out to Mark Hough, Shannon Matson, and Yolanda Bottomley from Bikram Yoga on the big island of Hawaii); the willingness to take yoga anywhere (Lorrie Blockhus, OM Sweet OM Yoga in the serene but tick infested northwoods of Wisconsin.… read more...

Below the Frost Line

When you engage with yoga, it will slowly render the surface-self transparent to its underlying divinity. It will build a foundation well below the frost line.

Yoga will not be televised, its moves are not dictated by chart, table, or graph; yoga will not whiten your teeth, but you will be astonished in moments of fluid inspiration, and the deep breaths you take will sustain apprehension of a true presence at once ecstatic and sublime.… read more...

YogaInspirational number 54 in Yogi Times “9 Ways to Return Yoga’s Gift.”

April 2017

https://www.yogitimes.com/article/what-you-give-to-yoga-

Yoga gives each of us more than we can repay. It’s the reason we continue our practice and make it a long-term life discipline. Yoga creates new space and provides the impetus for us to search for our true self. It has our backs and has fixed our spines.

Yoga balances our perceptions and teaches us to look to the horizon even when we resist and find it would be easier to look down and fall flat upon the mark of our diminished vision.

Yoga levels our judgments to a place of calm detachment; but also fills us with courage to say and do the right thing (on and off the mat) as often as we can. Yoga moves us to meet,  greet, and bow to worlds upon worlds, and that is why those of us practicing yearn to find our limits, breathe deep to fully inherit the spiritual science of health, and release everything into the realm of OHM.

What do you give to yoga?

Every yogi answers in their own way, but here’s one yogis answer:

I give my pain.

Perhaps it’s a surprising answer, and this is open to misinterpretation. But yes, I give yoga pain. I know the pain I need to release, and I know from experience that yoga will keep teaching me how to release it. It’s a pain I hold in my being, in my body, and it’s the pain I hold for the world.

I give my love for family and friends.

I see them aching not just from the slings and arrows of misfortune, and the lance of gossip and backbiting envy.… read more...

Yoga’s Countercultural Mathematic YogaInspirational # 30 from Jan 24, 2016 elephant journal

By subtracting from life that which is unnecessary or unproductive, the yogi ever more clearly defines for him/herself the positive change. This is yoga’s counter-intuitive mathematic, a discovery by negation.

But for those banking on New Year’s Eve resolutions, here’s the hard truth. Tapas – the burning away – is not an overnight solution or quick path to resolution and accomplishment. It’s a matter of degree and it happens day by day.

It remakes hearts and spines by grounding the yogi deeper in self-work as they ask themselves a question sharpened wisdom in counter cultural movement and the tapas of practice, is this necessary?

In the economy of adding, subtracting and multiplying to effect change, yoga’s mathematic is Gandhian in its disciplined core, negativa in its spiritual logic and hotly shamanistic in its strategy.… read more...

Enter the Master, Enter the Child

Thank you to Asana Journal for publishing my 50th Yoga Inspirational, “Enter the Master, Enter the Child.”

Comment if you’d like. I always appreciate hearing feedback from you.

Greg, author at gregoryormson.com, @GAOrmson

Profiles: Tumblr StumblOn, Pinterest, Reddit, Discuss, Diigo, Xing,  Asana Journal, DoYouYoga.com, elephant journal, Yogi Times, Yoga International, HelloYoga.com, The Health Orange, Tribegrow.com (April 2016),TheYogaBlog, Medium.com… read more...

49. The Honorable Yogi

The Honorable Yogi, Part I from Asana Journal, Dec. 13, 2016 at:      www.asanajournal.com/the-honorable-yogi/

A Snail Teaches Yoga

 … read more...

A Walk to Lake Superior

7

 

8     This summer of nostalgia and reunions has left me dizzy with memories. The two roads of which Frost wrote have never been relevant to me. I’ve always seen only one road, the one in which I was all in. I don’t care if the glass is half full or half empty; speculating on this is a waste of time. What are ya gonna show me today? What are ya gonna be now? What am I going to be? This is all that’s important; all the other stuff is exterior stuff and it’s not really stuff; to describe it, I often use another S word minus one letter

Recently, I walked a path dark and green; the pony trail in Michigan. When they were young, I held the reins and led my daughters on their ponies Billy and Midnight. It’s a trail that always led to the not trending and to the deep blue sea of Lake Superior. Sometimes on this trail, I’d see the passing of a shadow and remember the words of Chief Seattle, delivered 100 years before I was born:

“And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone.”

At that place, on the shores of gitche gumee, today I prayed on the wall where for many years I sought the counsel of silence.… read more...

IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

THE STORY OF HOW YOGA BROUGHT MY SOUL BACK

yogainspir-photo

The story of one man’s emotional healing and personal transformation through the power of yoga, meditation, writing, and faith.

After a day moving to Hawaii and into a new apartment, I was on a hard wooden floor in pain. This led me to yoga in an attempt to fix my back. It was out of desperation, yet a few weeks later I found myself in a hot yogaroom. With no formal background — and very little knowledge of yoga — I went to a class searching for something to make me strong in my broken places. I hoped I wouldn’t collapse, but was also confident about the challenge before me. With no preparation or personal experience, I jumped in.

My plan was to try yoga for thirty days. Then, I would evaluate how my back felt and decide if I should continue. I made it through twenty-four classes that month and found my will galvanized. My conclusion was clear: Yoga is the way to go for healing back pain. “It’s so simple,” I wrote, “why don’t more people do it?” Yoga worked, but the transformation goes deeper.

Writing and Yoga

I decided to keep attending and keep writing about it because I thought my practice in a heated room would benefit me in other ways too, and I was eager to discover them. But notes about yoga were not my only subject. I started writing on everything that came to me during that beautiful hour: I numbered the sessions, made notes about the teachers, chronicled my thoughts about the class and penned other insights.

… read more...

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